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Steve Jobs's resignation unlikely to change Apple's D.C. strategy

Under Jobs, Apple's Washington operation has been anything but flashy. | AP Photos
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The company also has a lot at stake in competition issues being monitored by the FTC and Justice Department. Anytime a company dominates a field — as Apple does in the mobile phone market and wireless application market — it should expect to be watched closely, industry sources warn.

Apple has plenty of competition to keep an eye on. Google’s Android mobile operating system has taken some of Apple’s market share, and Google recently announced intentions to buy Motorola Mobility, a move some see as a deliberate effort to go head-to-head with Apple.

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“How do you blame them for keeping their heads down and focusing on their successful products?” said Morgan Reed, executive director for The Association for Competitive Technology.

Even though Apple may not be as vocal as other companies on headline-grabbing topics, its D.C. operation has quietly grown over the past decade. Once a one-person shop, Apple now has seven employees in its Washington office and has hired a number of outside firms, including Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock and Franklin Square Group. In December, Apple hired Tim Powderly, former senior counsel to the House Energy & Commerce's technology subcommittee.

So far this year, it has spent just over $1.3 million to connect with federal regulators on privacy, patent reform and a slew of other hot tech topics, according to federal lobbying disclosures. That’s a boost from the $890,000 the company had spent this time last year.

But that’s still a far cry from the lobbying operations of rivals. Google and Microsoft, for example, each spent more in a single quarter this year than what Apple has spent so far this year.

Apple is one of the few major technology companies not to have a political action committee.

“Apple is actually very active in Washington,” Garfield said. “They do provide policy guidance on a broad range of things like patent reform and repatriation.”

Research and development and telecom issues are also on Apple’s radar, Garfield said.

Jobs’s resignation is not a complete surprise: He has struggled with his health for years, often appearing gaunt during his famous unveilings of new products. In 2004, he disclosed that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

His previous leave of absence “served as a great training experience for people’s perception of Apple” without Jobs, said Derek Kerton, chairman of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley.

Kerton said he “fully expects” Apple to continue its aggressive patent strategy.

“Say what you will about Apple, love or hate it, but Jobs has been an incredible visionary for the industry, so it’s a loss from that standpoint.”

Eliza Krigman and Mike Zapler contributed to this report.
This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:31 a.m. on August 25, 2011.

It sounds like Apple has managed to largely stay out of the whole K-street scene, which is a good thing. We don't need corporations using the law as a sword when it is meant to be used as a shield. Microsoft used to have a small operation in DC, but that changed after the anti-trust police clamped down on them. From that point on, they changed their MO to be more active. Hopefully the DOJ doesn't suddenly decide Apple has a "monopoly" with the iPad or iTunes and ruin another great American company.

Jobs had Apple quit the Chamber of Commerce over the Chamber's ante-diluvian denial of climate change. Jobs must have realized that the next step in the Chamber's thinking would be that 2+2 = whatever the Koch brothers say it is.

This must have made the teahadists so mad they ran out and bought Windows 93 PCs!

Sorry to see Jobs go. He is a great Marketeer! Jobs also from the very beginning in the little store front operation understood it was about the common folk not the techie.

Apple under Cook may chose the way forward on Patents they have been pushing to date which substantially advantages large multinationals and other wealthy invention TAKERS and significantly undermines small start-ups and individual inventors. Since Cook comes from IBM it would be unsurprising to find he has the big company attitude to start-ups (like Apple was a few decades ago).

Apple has done many things to advance the industry both with and without Jobs leadership. Apple has also been an incredibly selfish entity, refusing to contribute to the basic technology and development that they so willingly took from. There is no Xerox PARC or Bell Labs associated with Apple financial successes just rich dummies who think that Apple or even Jobs "envisioned" the technology they have put together so attractively. Touch screens, PDA phones, Digital Flash music players, and of course the 45 year old Tablet Computer all were conceived and developed on someone else's dollar, by some other actual visionary otherwise known as an inventor.

"Apple is actually very active in Washington...They do provide policy guidance on a broad range of things like patent reform"

Meaning they have written the patent bill to their advantage and other giant infringers.

"patent reform"

Just because they call it “reform” doesn’t mean it is.

The patent bill is nothing less than another monumental federal giveaway for banks, huge multinationals, and China and an off shoring job killing nightmare for America. Even the leading patent expert in China has stated the bill will help them steal our inventions. Who are the supporters of this bill working for??

Patent reform is a fraud on America. This bill will not do what they claim it will. What it will do is help large multinational corporations maintain their monopolies by robbing and killing their small entity and startup competitors (so it will do exactly what the large multinationals paid for) and with them the jobs they would have created. The bill will make it harder and more expensive for small firms to get and enforce their patents. Without patents we cant get funded. Yet small entities create the lion's share of new jobs. According to recent studies by the Kauffman Foundation and economists at the U.S. Census Bureau, “startups aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.” This bill is a wholesale slaughter of US jobs. Those wishing to help in the fight to defeat this bill should contact us as below.

Small entities and inventors have been given far too little voice on this bill when one considers that they rely far more heavily on the patent system than do large firms who can control their markets by their alone. The smaller the firm, the more they rely on patents -especially startups and individual inventors.

It's a huge payoff for the Big Banks and Wall Street, so Obama and Harry Reid want to bring this quietly to the floor of the Senate in non-amendable fashion on the very first day back from recess. I hope we can stop them and activists who want to help stop it can go here - see http://jobsNOTbanks.com